“No, I can’t.”
We all fell silent, and the only sound was the hissing of the water as Owen kept washing and rinsing off the dishes.
Finn shook his head again. “And I still can’t believe that Silvio just up and gave you all of this information on Benson. It’s better than a Christmas present. Why can’t people ever make things this easy for me?”
“What can I say? I’m special,” I quipped. “People throw things at me wherever I go.”
He snorted. “You mean they pull out guns and try to shoot you with them. Knives, rune bombs, and the like.”
“Well, I suppose that people wanting me dead is its own form of flattery. At least it makes me popular.” I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “So how does it look to you?”
Finn shuffled through the information again. “Doing it up close and personal is out of the question. There’s a lot of open space around the mansion, and his guards would be all over you the second you set foot on the grounds. But let’s say that you managed to slip inside his mansion. Guess what? There are more guards on every single floor. Even if you got Benson, I don’t think you could get out again. At least, not without making a whole lot of noise and alerting the exterior guards.”
“Providing that I could even get Benson in the first place,” I muttered.
Something I wasn’t so sure about, given his Air magic. Sneaking up on people was one of the things I did best, but if Benson knew I was coming, if his magic whispered to him that I was there, then I would lose the element of surprise. And I had a feeling that I would need every single advantage I could get to take him down.
Owen didn’t hear me over the rush of the water, but Finn did, and he raised his eyebrows in obvious concern. I ignored his worry and waved my hand, telling him to continue.
“Sniping him from a distance is the best option,” Finn said. “There are a couple of buildings close to his mansion that have good sight lines. If I were you, I’d wait until he goes out to his Bentley and put a bullet through his head.”
He tapped his finger on a photo that showed Benson’s baby-blue Bentley parked by itself on the street outside his mansion. “He never rides in anything else, and the car is always parked right there, according to Silvio’s file.”
“It’s a wonder somebody doesn’t steal it, if it’s just sitting out there in the open,” Owen said.
“No one would dare to steal Benson’s car, because everyone in Southtown knows exactly who it belongs to and what he would do to them once he caught them,” I said. “And he would catch them. A car like that would be hard to fence without word getting back to Benson.”
“Yeah,” Finn said in a dreamy tone. “But ain’t she a beauty?”
He stroked his fingers over the photo, as if he could actually feel the perfect paint and polished chrome.
Owen finished with the dishes, slung a towel over his shoulder, and leaned against the counter. “But are you going to do it, Gin? That’s the real question.”
Benson had certainly given me reason enough by taking Roslyn hostage and menacing Bria. I’d killed people for less—far less—and anybody who threatened my friends or my family was fair game, as far as I was concerned. Not to mention my guilt that Roslyn had been targeted in the first place solely because of her friendship with me. I felt like I’d failed her, even though there was no way I could have predicted that Benson would use her to get to me.
“Well, Gin?” Finn asked. “What do you say?”
They both looked at me, Finn’s face bright and eager, Owen’s calm and accepting. Owen didn’t have a stake in whether Benson lived or died, but Finn certainly did: Bria.
Benson couldn’t hurt her if he was dead, and if I didn’t kill him, I wouldn’t put it past Finn to attempt the deed himself. But my killing the vamp—or even Finn doing the job—wouldn’t satisfy Bria. Not really. Not with her burning need for revenge for her informant’s death. That was the kind of poison promise that you had to fulfill yourself—by twisting a knife into your enemy’s heart, feeling his warm blood coat your hands, and watching the fire flare out of his eyes.
“Gin?” This time, Owen asked the question.
Instead of answering, I dropped my gaze back down to the table, locking on a particular photo, the one of Silvio, Laura, and Catalina.
I reached out and traced my index finger over Silvio’s arm as it curved around his sister’s shoulder, his hand resting close to Catalina’s smiling face. I thought of everything Catalina had already gone through with her mother’s death, then witnessing Troy’s murder. And everything that Silvio had endured over the years, all the bits and pieces of himself that had been sanded down and sucked away, not because of Benson’s vampiric Air magic but just by Silvio working for him. The two of them didn’t deserve to lose anything else. Not to the likes of Benson.
I picked up the photo and set it over on the far side of the table where it would be out of the way. Then I grabbed the pictures that showed the exterior of Benson’s mansion, before looking up at Owen and Finn in turn.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to kill Benson.”
•
We finished our powwow. Before leaving, Finn promised to come by the restaurant tomorrow to help me start scouting out the best location to snipe Benson from. Owen offered to stay the night, but I sent him home too. It had been a long day, and the next few would be longer still, at least until Benson was dead, and I was determined to get every bit of rest I could.
For once, I didn’t fall into my dreams and memories of the past, and I woke up feeling refreshed. Or perhaps my good mood was because I’d finally made the choice to take out the vampire. I’d been indecisive the past few days, wimpy, wishy-washy, and just plain whiny. I always felt better when I had a plan of attack.
But before I killed Benson, I had to get through another day at the Pork Pit.
I opened the restaurant right on time, keeping an eye out in case Benson had posted any of his men around the restaurant to watch me, but the street out front was clear, and so was the alley out back. And none of the customers who came and went was interested in anything but how much barbecue they could stuff themselves with. I savored the quiet. It wouldn’t last.
At around three o’clock, I had enough time to take a break, so I sat on my stool, pulled the file of information on Benson out from a slot in the counter below the cash register, and read through it. I’d already reviewed it once last night before going to bed, but I was hoping that a fresh look today would help me figure things out.